Advent
by Empathist
Summary: A retro Stendan story for Christmas. Set in December 2010, it begins at the episode shown on E4 on 15 December/C4 16 December. One-shot.


**Advent**

_December 2010_

We had real Christmas trees when we were kids. Live ones, you know, not the tinsel creations like this one that we've got here. Only they weren't live, were they? I remember thinking that, when my dad brought it home one year: a fir tree that hardly fit through the door, and I watched him force its sawn-off stump into the metal stand and tighten it like a vice to stop it from keeling over, and the smell of it was gorgeous. It smelt of the outdoors, of escape, but then after a few days you couldn't smell it any more, and you realised that the smell had been the last bit of life bleeding out of it.

I remember watching my dad lifting my sister up so she could stick the star on the top of it. _Is your brother jealous, d'you think, beautiful?_ – and he kissed her and set her down and asked her, _D'you think Brendan wants to play with the pretty decorations?_ And I said, _No, Dad_. And once the tree was up it was officially the start of Christmas, and that meant he could start drinking in the mornings instead of waiting till dark. Everybody did, didn't they, not just him. _No, Dad_.

I've skived off work early. Cheryl's gone off out for the night with Lynsey, and I figure if she can take the evening off, I can too. The staff can cope, and Jacqui and Rhys owe me after I helped them out of the hole they dug themselves into at Danny Houston's poker game.

When I get home, one of the decorations – baubles, do you call them? – is on the floor. I guess it hadn't been hung properly and the weight of it has slid it off the branch. I pick it up, then have a drink, and now I'm fiddling with the loop it's meant to hang from and there's a knock at the door, and I open it and suddenly Steven is in my house like he owns the place, all fake-casual and itching to know what happened at the poker game, and I'm thinking maybe that's not all he's itching for.

I'm fake-casual too. I brush against him when I return to the tree to hang the purple bauble back on it.

"So, you didn't cheat at the poker," he says, and he's reminding me – like I need reminding – of the game I took him to before, when we ran a system that netted me a profit and he told me afterwards that he'd had the best night of his life, and he probably had until I gave him some better nights.

The boy is flirting.

I flirt back: "Well, didn't have you to provide me with the information, did I?"

He must have had his hood up when he walked here from the SU Bar, because his hair is dry but there's a mist of rain on his clothes.

Flirting's over.

He looks at me, smug as fuck, sure as fuck that I'm going to make a move, the slick little bastard. One shove in the chest and he falls like a felled tree, lands on his back on the couch and I fall on him. His lips are cold but his breath is hot, and his hand is in my hair like he thinks I'm his, and I nudge my knee at his groin to find out if he's getting hard same as me. He is.

I get off him, tell him Cheryl and Lynsey are out so, you know, _come on_, and he stands up but he's not coming, he's got his arguing face on. He says something about how I only want this as long as we're hidden away behind closed doors. Jesus, that's the deal. He _knows_ that's the deal, like it's been all along, but it's never enough for him. So I ask him why he's sounding like a whining woman.

"Yeah, I do, don't I. And I don't like it," he says, and I try and get hold of him – _come here_ – but he snatches his arm away and he says, "No! I'm not gonna be someone to be ashamed of any more."

"What? I never s– " Is that what he thinks? It shocks me that he thinks it's him that I'm ashamed of. "I don't think that," I tell him, and it's... it's weird how much I want him to believe me.

"Brendan, I only have to look at you for too long in public and you hit me."

That stings. A minute ago I thought we were going to be fucking, but we're fighting instead.

"What do you want from me, Steven?" I'm pissed off, and I ain't hiding it.

He looks at me, and there's a kind of sorrow in his face like he's already prepared for me to refuse him whatever it is that he wants, before he's even asked for it. And when he says it – "For you to go on a date with me" – it's like it's something that he's been holding in his head for a long time.

It floors me. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. All I can say is, "_What_?"

"A bite to eat, a few drinks, in public like any other normal couple." He really has been thinking about this, and I wonder, for how long? And then he tells me, "It's that or nothing."

We look at each other, and every instinct I have is telling me to ridicule him, call him a girl for wanting _dates_ and _romance_ and blah blah blah, and teach him a lesson for thinking he can get away with giving me an ultimatum. And I reckon he's thinking the same thing, because he looks scared. He looks as if he's expecting a putdown or a slap, but the way he's standing there in front of me, so fragile I could snap him in two but with his jaw set and his eyes not blinking, not looking away, not letting me look away... It turns out I've got another instinct, stronger than the instinct to lash out with my tongue or my fist. It's the instinct not to.

I've had things on my mind, see, since the poker game, things that kept me awake last night, and they're a lot of _what if_s. What if Steven hadn't got mad at me when he thought I'd punched Cheryl's so-called French, so-called interior decorator because he was a so-called queer, instead of because he was a fucking conman – what if Steven hadn't been angry so hadn't cried off going with me to the game? What if we'd run our little scam like we did that time at the Dog, and what if we'd got busted like Rhys and Jacqui did? What if it hadn't been Rhys that Danny set his goons on, and it had been Steven instead? What if it was Steven being hung out of that window, Steven's life on the line, Steven looking over his shoulder waiting to get his? _What if?_

"Okay," I say.

It's his turn to say, "What?"

"Okay. That's okay." And then his words come back to me, _Like any other normal couple_, and I backtrack because we're not a couple, we're two blokes and he's talking as if we're queer. "We'll... We been to the Dog before, ain't we? We'll go for a pint, yeah, if that's what you want."

"No, Brendan! That's not what I mean. Yeah, we've been to the Dog, in't we, with Rae and that India, but it weren't – "

"We been other times, ain't we, on our own?" There was that time when I put myself in between him and Warren Fox when Warren Fox was doing his 'It's all coming back to me' act and his eyes fell on Steven. "We'll go tomorrow, yeah, knock off work early and – "

"Not the Dog. Somewhere away from here, right, so we can... you know, be ourselves."

I look at him.

"Be... What does that even mean, Steven?"

"If I find somewhere, will you come?"

"I said so, didn't I?"

"A proper date though, Brendan."

Jesus.

"I said I'll come, so I'll come."

I guess he believes me, because he flies at me – sends me stumbling back a couple of steps with the surprise of it – and his arms are around my neck and he's kissing me, and I squeeze his arse through his black work trousers, and we career towards my bedroom, falling against the furniture and crashing against the staircase on the way.

He's tiny when he's naked. I mean, he's a scrawny little fucker at the best of times, he doesn't fill his clothes out any more than a coathanger, anyone can see that. But when he's naked, you see how close his bones are to the surface; you see how he's made, not an ounce of fat anywhere, just this soft pelt of brown skin stretched over all the planes and angles of him, and if you look for too long you realise you've stopped breathing.

Like I said, scrawny little fucker.

I'm on him on the bed, looking down at him, my arms taking my weight. His hands are on my chest, and I can feel my heart bumping against them as I kiss him, and my cock is between his legs and I rub myself on the underside of his balls. His mouth is open wide enough to dislocate his jaw, and I push my tongue inside it as far as it'll stretch, and he breathes hard through his nose because he's got no choice; and then I pull back, take the pressure off, and after a second he takes the hint and takes his turn, and I feel his tongue behind my teeth, and I suck it in. It tastes of water.

I move and kiss his throat, and his Adam's apple vibrates against my lips when he speaks.

"Are you gonna just dry-hump me all night or..?"

Horny little shit.

I straighten my arms like a press-up and look at his face. My stubble has made the skin around his mouth pink. He bites his lip.

I get off him and dig around in the back of the drawer for a condom, and I've got this new little canister of lube for him. I lie down facing him and he turns onto his side to face me, and I hitch his leg across my hip and feel the spread of his cheeks, then I pump out a blob of the lube onto my fingers. It's thicker than the kind I've used with him before, it's dense and smooth and he likes it: he presses himself against my hand like a cat being petted. Jesus, he's practically purring. My fingers slip into him and his muscle contracts around them, and there's a tremble in his breath.

I lie back and put on a rubber, and a smear of lube on the end of it to help him out.

"Something new?" I say to him, and I stay on my back. "Wanna get on?"

"What, like..?" He's never ridden me before, which means he's never ridden anyone before.

I have to guide myself into him when he kneels astride me, and then there's a lot of shuffling on his knees, and _Oh fuck, I can't..._ before he finds the angle that lets him take me in smoothly and – Jesus Christ – so deeply that when I look at his skinny little pelvis from this position I seriously wonder where the fuck he's putting me.

There's a look of triumph on his face, and it makes me laugh, and there's a moment when I think he's going to take offence but then he gasps out a laugh back at me, and he begins to move, just up and down at first but then he has this kind of eureka moment when he starts to circle his hips and flex his spine to get the friction right on his sweet spot. He grinds down, and he looks like he's discovered the meaning of life, and his cock oozes precum.

I slap his thigh to make him tighten, and he speeds up jerkily. I grab his dick in one hand, his balls in the other, and when he's about to come I press his dick against his stomach and his cum shoots upwards as he screeches, and it seeps between my splayed fingers and trickles down the back of my hand and slows and sticks in the hairs on my wrist. Then I grip his hips and thrust up into him till I come too. The force of it makes me sit up, and for a second we're looking into each other's faces, and I reckon I must look as startled as he does; and then I lie back and my head hits the pillow again.

He's got no strength left in his legs, and I have to help him raise himself off me. I think he's shaking, or maybe I imagine it.

I hand him a wad of tissues to clean himself, and I peel off the condom and wipe my hands. He's got under the cover when I turn back around; I get in too. He makes like he's going to cuddle up but then he hesitates and so I stretch my arm out along the pillows and he shifts so his head is resting on my shoulder.

_Cuddling_. Jesus.

He's quiet. Makes a change with this boy, he doesn't shut up most of the time. It doesn't last though.

"Never thought you'd let me be in charge," he says.

"What? What you talking about, 'in charge'?"

"Like, being on top."

"What, you think doing it cowgirl style means – "

"'Cowgirl'?"

"That's what they call it, ain't it, that position. D'you think doing it cowgirl style means you're – "

"I'm a boy though."

"It's what it's called, Steven, it's called – "

"It would be cow_boy_ though, wun't it, cos I'm a boy."

"You're... fucking talking in my ear, it's..." For fucksake. "D'you think doing it cow_boy_ style means you're in charge? No."

"Yeah, but – "

"No. The cowboy only gets to ride so long as the horse lets him, don't he, so."

"So you're the horse?"

"I'm the..? Metaphorically, yes, I'm the horse. And what you gotta remember is, the horse can throw the cowboy over any time he wants."

"Oh. Right." He sounds deflated.

Thing is, I know him. It's only been a couple of months since I started fucking him, and half that time we ain't been fucking because he keeps finishing it because I... And when I think about it, we ain't meant to be fucking now are we? Didn't he say he was going to make a go of it with Rae, or was that the time before? Anyhow. It's only been a couple of months, on and off, but I know him, and I know what he likes, and what he likes is knowing who's boss. He'd have picked some other fella if he didn't, some soft-headed sap, or he'd have carried on with the little blondes he can put his arm around, Amy and Rae and whoever would have come next. But it's my bed he's in, because I know what he wants.

"Hey." I tilt his chin up, make him look at me. He's pouting; with my thumbnail I scratch a crust of dried saliva off the corner of his mouth, and then I stroke his dry bottom lip, and I whisper, "Who's in charge, me or you?" I raise my eyebrow so he knows I'm only messing, and he smiles.

"You."

I kiss him, and his fingers rake the hairs on my chest.

"And don't go forgetting it," I tell him. "Good."

His phone sounds then in a pocket of his discarded clothes, with a text.

"That'll be Rae," he says, and I feel the cracks appearing and the warmth leaving and the outside seeping in. "She'll be wondering where I am, she knows what time me shift finished."

"You better run along then," I say, and I hear the edge in my voice.

"Don't be getting on at me, Brendan, right, it was your idea for me to get back with her." He's scrambling into his clothes. "And she's looking after me kids, I can't just – "

"What'll you tell her?"

"Dunno. Just say I had to work late I s'pose, say I had to cover someone's shift."

I'm up and getting dressed too.

"Believe you, will she?"

"She'll have to. I don't like lying to her, Bren, and I wouldn't have to, would I, if – "

"Give it a rest, Steven, yeah?"

I walk with him to the front door.

"So are we really gonna go out tomorrow night?" He looks resigned to me letting him down, and my chest feels tight. "Or did you just say it so I'd – "

"Fucksake," I snap at him, and he flinches. And then I say to him again what I said to him this morning at work: "I can change, Steven."

His hood is half tucked in at the collar and I straighten it.

"See you at work, then," he says.

"See you at work."

:::::::

He doesn't believe we're going on this... this _date_, right up until he's been and got changed in the toilets at the SU Bar and I've got us a cab and called him to come around the corner to meet me in it.

I'm having trouble believing it myself.

He tells the driver the street we're going to, and he tells me it's a bar and he's heard it's okay, and before we get out he says – quiet so's the cabbie won't hear – "Brendan, right, don't kick off, but it's a gay bar, okay. I just thought you wouldn't see anyone you know and no one's gonna be looking at us funny, are they, cos we'll be just another, like, couple..." and he keeps on talking, justifying, appeasing, and I wonder if he's saying it while we're still in the cab because I'm not likely to break his ribs in front of a witness, and I start to get this noise in my head. And there's two roads, and the road I know is dark but I know all its corners and ditches and I know as long as I travel it it'll bring me back to the same place. It's fearful but it's familiar. And then there's this other road, and I'm not even sure if it goes anywhere, and I'm not sure if there's something for me at the end of it but there's a chance – I don't know if it's much of a chance, but it's still a chance – that if I follow it I'll end up somewhere I can breathe.

"Come on then," I say, and we get out of the cab.

The light is low inside the bar.

I can feel my shirt sticking to my back.

Steven goes to get the drinks in and I sit down. Everywhere there's men in twos. I see two men lean across a table and kiss each other like it's normal, and words swim into my head, _queer_, _faggot_, _pansy_, and what am I doing here with _them_? And then I notice that some of the fellas in here – the ones that aren't already hooked up, and some of the ones that are – are looking at Steven as he waits at the bar. They're sizing him up, and I never reckoned on that: I never reckoned he'd be in a place like this with people like them thinking he's one of them and there for the taking. And I'm half way to getting up and dragging him out, because what am I doing here? But then Steven's here with the drinks, and I'm here because of him. Because what? Because it's the price I have to pay to keep him sweet? Because somehow I've acquired a fear that's greater than the fear that I am what I've always feared to be. This new fear is the fear of losing him.

He's nervous. It's not this place that's making him nervous, it's me, and he has a go at some smalltalk like he's trying to make this feel normal when it's anything but.

"What you doing for Christmas, then?" he asks.

"I..." My mouth's dry and I take a drink and clear my throat. "I dunno. Be with Chez, I guess, you know. She likes all that, so. How about you, you got your kids?"

"Yeah. Well, I've got them till Christmas morning, then their granddad's coming to pick them up and they're gonna stay at his place with Amy for a coupl'a days."

"Thought you'd be playing happy families with your girlfriend."

Sarcasm's easy, it's my territory and I hope he'll bite back but he doesn't.

"Rae's gonna be at her mum's. She's said I can go there for Christmas dinner, you know, after Mike's took the kids off, and stay the night. On the couch, like. So I might do that. " He pauses. "Unless..."

"Unless what?" I wonder what he's created in his head now. Christmas together, him and me, like some kind of imitation family, is that what he's thinking? Dreaming of a white Christmas and kissing under the mistletoe and happy ever fucking after, is that it?

"Dun't matter," he says.

"I'm..." _I'm sorry_.

He's realised that smalltalk is just as fraught so he might as well get on with the big talk, and he starts off saying he wants us to have a _proper relationship_ where we're there for each other, and then he brings up what happened the other day with the Frenchman, and I explain to him again, I punched the guy because he took advantage of my sister, not because he was...

"Gay," Steven says.

"Yeah. Yeah, whatever."

"See, you can't even say the word, can you? How are you ever gonna be comfortable with us – us being a proper couple?" He looks at me, and I guess he sees inside me, because he says, "You're not, are you?"

And I don't think I am. I don't think I've got it in me to become the man he wants me to be, but the only hope I've got of finding my way along that road is if he's beside me.

"I'm here, aren't I?" I say, and I hope he knows what I can't say, even to myself: I hope he knows that I'm trying, and _why_ I'm trying. And now there's so much in the air between us that I've got to cut through it, and so it's my turn with the smalltalk. "This, er... This place, it's... it's different. I guess."

"I like it." He touches my hand across the table – rests his hand on mine – and the _it_ that he likes isn't this place, it's _this_, me and him together in the parallel world in his imagination, and I can't do it. I can't live up to it, leastways not so fast, and my head is filling with noise again, and I look around to see if we're being seen, and I pull my hand away.

"I'm sorry, Steven. I've got a lot on my mind. I'm just gonna... I'm gonna go to the toilet." I touch his hand for a fraction of a second before I stand up, and the touch is my apology in advance, in case the next thing I'm going to say turns out to be a lie: "I'll be back."

It happens sometimes, this noise inside my head. Sometimes it's there when I want to get to sleep, and sometimes it's there in my sleep like a nightmare, and sometimes it starts when something's happening. It's not voices, not exactly. Hearing voices means you're crazy, unless it's the voice of God, and I... God ain't talking to me any more than he's listening, and I ain't crazy. I'm just not _normal_. It's words, the noise, and there's pictures too and sensations, a whole lot of memories piling in on each other, and it stops me thinking straight, and it's happening as I stare into the mirror in the toilets of this bar. Steven's voice, _So what are you, then? What am I? _The smell of a cigarette burning out. My dad's words from across the years, branding me then and now: _He's no man. _Steven again, _Unless..._ with his head full of snow and mistletoe kisses and happy ever fucking after, and then another voice, and it's mine but it's so far away I can't make the words out. I try to, but it's gone.

I'm going to let him down. Maybe now, maybe later, and when I come out of the toilets and he doesn't see me because he's facing the other way, my decision is made. It's now. I walk out, get a cab home, send my sister a text, _Off home 2 Belfast 2 C kids, Merry Xmas! _then switch off my phone. Make the cab wait while I pack a bag, and then head for the airport.

I'm on the familiar road.

:::::::

I'm not away for long. Long enough for my wife to let me know I'm not welcome, and for my boys to ask me if I'm back for good and for me to see the disappointment in them when I tell them _no_ but can't tell them _why_. To be honest, when Danny Houston calls me to say we've got a problem and he needs me back, I can't get on the plane fast enough.

I go to meet Danny in the SU Bar soon as I land. Chez is there; she says she's booked herself a flight home for Christmas eve so that we can have Christmas together in Belfast, so now not only have I fucked up by leaving her here, I've also fucked up by coming back. I tell her I'll book myself onto the same flight and we'll both go, which appeases her.

Steven is working, clearing glasses when I walk in. I don't know how he'll be. I know how I'd be if I'd been left humiliated in a bar half way through a date, but he ain't me. "It was too much," he says. "You're not ready. Maybe you won't ever be ready. I get it." And he shrugs and walks away the better man, but I can see the bruises below the surface, and he's right at the top of the list of people I've disappointed in the last few days.

When Danny comes in he takes me down to Chez Chez. Although we moved lock stock into the SU Bar after the fire, we've started to use the office in the club again because there's no office at the SU and no safe. I don't know why he doesn't seem in any hurry to get the place up and running again: if it was down to me I'd be moving heaven and earth to get it back in shape so we weren't squatting in the fucking students' union for any longer than we had to, but it's not down to me, so. I get it with my sister, kind of. She's in her element remaking the SU in her own image, but Danny? I don't know, he always used to say the nightclub game would be a piece of piss if it wasn't for the punters, so maybe he just likes having an empty club to sit in.

The problem he's brought me back for is on the CCTV. Warren Fox is digging up the cellar of the club, for reasons of his own which Danny reckons I'm going to find out for him. He has something on me, Danny does – or at least he thinks he does, and he thinks it gives him leverage with me. He's figured that I was involved with robbing him after that poker game, but I figure that if he had any proof he'd have brought it to my attention before now, in his own special way.

The next day the ground starts to shift. I meet with Danny again, and he starts talking about someone I used to know, and the way he's talking, he makes it obvious that he knows what I sometimes do. He knows that sometimes I... He knows what I did with Vinnie. He doesn't come straight out with it, but he lets me know that he's wise to it – _Little Vinnie, he had a bit of a thing for you, didn't he_ – and it's not a surprise, not really. There's been times over the years I've known Danny Houston when I've wondered if he knew, even before Vinnie, what I sometimes did with lads. Comments he made, jokes at my expense, but he never used it so maybe I convinced myself that I was being paranoid. I know now.

There's something else he tells me, and it knocks me sideways. He tells me that the road accident that killed the lad wasn't an accident. Danny killed him, or had him killed. He says Vinnie came on to him and so he killed him, and he says he doesn't know why Vinnie did it but he says maybe he was missing me.

If he thinks he scares me, if he thinks he can deal with me like he dealt with that boy – if he thinks this threat gives him leverage – he's wrong. I tell him I ain't no Vinnie.

I don't get any sleep. He was a good lad, wouldn't hurt a fly; never fought back. Never would've come on to anyone, never mind a man like Danny Houston, but that's Danny's story and Vinnie ain't here to tell his side of it. He was a good lad. A good lad.

Something nags at me, something more. Something in the way I've seen Danny looking at Steven, and I feel like there's a solid mass in the pit of my stomach. I avoid Steven at work, cold-shoulder him.

When I catch up with Danny in the office at the club, he tells me again to sort out Warren Fox for him, but I'm not caving in to his threats and I tell him so.

That's when everything changes.

_Come on, Brendan. You've always got a boy in tow._

He's worked out that Steven's my... He's worked it out, and that's his leverage. It's Steven he's threatening to hurt if I don't do what he wants. _Sort the Warren Fox problem out... cos if you don't, your new boyfriend is gonna have it._

I could front it out, tell him he's wrong. _Steven's nothing to me_, I could say, _Steven's nobody_. But I don't.

I buy myself time, put Warren in the picture enough to get him to lie low. If I do this thing for Danny, it won't end there, so I need to think.

The bar's closed till after Christmas and Danny's got better things to do than hang around in Hollyoaks now that Warren's out of the way. I've booked myself on Cheryl's flight to Belfast – the last one on Christmas eve – and there's nothing I can do here anyways, and Steven's better off with me out of the way, so.

So we get a cab to the airport, my sister and me, and I'll be glad to see the back of this place. There's nothing here but trouble.

_Unless..._

I don't get on the plane.

:::::::

It takes me a minute to remember what day it is: I've never woken up in an empty house on Christmas day before.

There's nothing to get up for so I drift off back to sleep, then when I get up I phone to talk to Declan and Padraig. I talk to Eileen first and she tells me what she's bought them with the money I gave her for their presents. She says she's told them the presents are from me, and I thank her, tell her it's good of her. _I didn't do it for you_, she says. _I did it because I don't want their Christmas ruined knowing their dad's let them down again._

I have a liquid breakfast. Merry fucking Christmas.

I'm agitated. I think Danny's gone down south for a couple of days, but it doesn't mean he's not got people around here keeping an eye on his interests.

Maybe I can relax if I know Steven's gone off to Rae's mother's place. I pick up my phone, but I don't call him. I'd rather see for myself.

The warmth of the whiskey doesn't last, and I turn up the collar of my coat against the cold as I walk to the council flats.

I'm just about to knock on the front door when it opens. Steven's there with one of his kids in his arms – the younger one, the boy – and there's someone behind him coming out of his flat holding the little girl by the hand. The kids' granddad, must be, Amy's dad.

Steven's eyes are like saucers and his mouth drops open when he sees me on his doorstep. I walk in past him, past his flat, up the stairs and out of their sight round the corner, and wait outside the door of the top flat. I hear Amy's dad say, "Didn't think they were in upstairs, haven't heard them."

"Must be in, just being quiet," Steven says.

"Rhys Ashworth, quiet? Now I've heard it all."

"Probably having a lie-in, him and Jacqui was on the late shift last night."

Their voices fade then as they go out to put the kids into the car, I guess, and as I go down the stairs now that the coast is clear, Steven comes back in and looks up at me.

"They gone, yeah?" I ask him.

"What you doing here, Brendan? What if he tells Amy you was here, eh? She's gonna kick right off, in't she."

"He don't know who I am, what's he gonna tell her? 'I saw some fella visiting Jacqui McQueen'? Get a grip, Steven."

"Jacqui in't there though, they've gone round the McQueens'."

"Amy don't know that, does she? Jesus." We're still stood in the hallway. "We going inside or what?"

He looks at me, dark suspicion all over his face, then goes into his flat. I follow.

"So, what d'you want?"

He's wearing low slung jeans and a thin sweater. He looks cold from being outside.

"Just wanted to check how long you'll be away for. You're on shift Monday."

"I'll be back in time. I'll be back tomorrow. You could'a rung."

"Just wanted to see you were okay, Steven."

"Why wouldn't I be?" He's still looking at me with suspicion, and I can't say I blame him. But then his expression changes, and he says, "Are _you_ okay?"

"Course." I look around the room. "Make it a bombsite, don't they."

"What?"

"Kids, Christmas morning. All the..."

"Oh, right, all the wrapping paper and... Yeah. I like it though. It's... it's good mess, innit."

"It's good mess."

"D'you want a drink, Brendan? I had whisky but it was for Mike for a present so... But anyway, it was Scotch so you probably wouldn'a liked it cos you like it Irish, don't you. So there's lager in the fridge, d'you want one?"

He's babbling. I don't know if it's me making him nervous, or his own thoughts.

"No. But thanks." I've seen the kind of lager he buys.

"Right. Oh! I've got wine! We can have that. You like wine, don't you? Yeah you do. It's a good one, it's... I was gonna take it to Rae's for... Don't matter though. You gonna take your coat off?"

He gets a bottle out of a Price Slice carrier bag on the couch and undoes the screwtop before I can stop him. He goes through to the kitchen.

I take off my coat and take in my surroundings. The place is festooned with gaudy decorations, all looking like they're old or from the pound shop or both. Some of the things on the tree have been made by the kids, out of scrunched-up tinfoil or cut-out shapes coloured in with crayon and sellotaped to the branches.

My throat feels tight.

Steven comes back and hands me a glass of wine; he handles it by the stem, like a good barman.

"Cheers," I say.

"It's French," he says. "Happy Christmas, then, Bren."

We touch glasses.

"Happy Christmas."

I drink. It's all tannin and no body. He looks at me over the rim of his tumbler as he takes a sip, and he wrinkles his nose at the taste, and I want him. I want him bad, but that's not what I came here for. It really isn't: I didn't even bring a rubber.

"Is it alright?" he asks.

"It's fine." I take another sip to show him that it's fine. "What time you going off to your... Rae's family thing?"

"Oh, crap. Her mum's gonna be coming to pick me up. I better phone, or..."

He takes a gulp of wine then puts down his glass and picks up his phone and dials. We're both still standing in the middle of the room, but he turns his back and I think it's like a child playing hide and seek, before they've reached the stage when they realise that just because they can't see you, it doesn't mean you can't see them.

I'm a few feet away but even if I was up close I wouldn't be able to see, there's this fine down on the nape of his neck just below the clipped hairline; it's invisible, but you can feel it with your fingertips or with your lips.

"Hiya," he says when Rae answers. "Happy Christmas ... Thanks. Has your mum left yet, Rae? Cos ... Don't let her then, cos the kids an't gone yet, Mike's been held up..." He's lying, easy and convincing, and I listen with fascination. "No, I don't know. I'll ring you when he's been, alright? … No, tell your mum she don't need to pick me up, I'll get a taxi … Yeah they do, they don't have Christmas do they, them drivers, they're, like, Muslims and that … No, but I don't know how long I'll be, do I, and it's not fair on your mum not having a drink cos she's gotta drive. No, I'll get a … Yeah I have, I've got enough. I got a bonus, didn't I ..." He drops his voice. "Everybody did, not just me, Rae, right ..." It's true, Cheryl gave all the bar staff a bonus with their December pay, all taxed and official and through the books. Only Steven's pay packet had been opened, and resealed with a few extra notes inside that didn't show on his payslip.

Looks like he's persuaded her, and he ends the call with, "See you later," and a mumbled, "Me too."

"Women, eh?" I say.

"She's gonna save me some dinner if I'm late." He retrieves his glass from where he'd put it, and drains it. "Want some more?"

I go with him to the kitchen and refill our glasses. The bottle's got a price ticket on it, I notice. £4.99.

We touch glasses again, and this time our knuckles brush. His eyes flash to mine then he looks away.

"You'll be drunk before you get there," I say.

"No I won't. Half a bottle in't gonna make me drunk. I'm not a lightweight."

"No. Course not."

I think he's going to challenge my tone, but he doesn't. Instead he says, "Are you hungry? There's mince pies if you want one?"

"I'm alright."

"Right." He drinks, and I watch his Adam's apple fall and rise as he swallows.

My phone rings, and I go and get it from the pocket of my coat and answer it.

"Alright, Chez? Merry Christmas. You having a good time?"

"Always good to be home. Wish you hadn't bailed on me, I still don't know what the emergency was."

"There was no emergency, I just thought one of us should be around, you know, to keep an eye on the place."

"I tried ringing the house phone but you weren't there..."

She hangs out for an explanation of my whereabouts, and in the end I say, "Just out for a drink with a mate."

Steven comes through from the kitchen at that moment and puts our glasses down on the table. He gives me a look; he doesn't like me calling him a _mate_ for some reason.

"Very quiet there for a pub," my sister says, and when I don't respond, she says, "Oh my god – is it a girl? Have you got yourself a new girlfriend on the quiet, and you're round at her place for Christmas? Am I right?"

"It's... Come on, Chez, enough of the third degree, yeah?"

"I wish you'd told me, Bren. I was worried about you being all alone on Christmas day like Oliver Twist – or is it Tiny Tim? – so this is... Is it anyone I know?"

"It's no one, Chez, okay?" Jesus.

Steven slopes off to the kitchen and there's the banging of cupboard doors.

"So I'll let you get on with whatever it is you're doing with _no one_," Cheryl says archly, "And I'll expect all the gory details when I'm back."

"When are you back?"

"Day or two, I'm gonna see when I can get a flight. I'm... I need to see Warren, he's been so weird recently, he – "

"See you soon, then." I can't get into a conversation about Warren. "Love you, sis."

"Love you too."

I think she's still talking when I end the call.

Steven comes back with a dish that he's filled with salted peanuts. He holds it out to me, and I scoop out a fistful.

"I've gotta eat something, me," he says. "I can't turn up drunk at Rae's mum's, can I."

"Thought you weren't drunk."

"I'm not."

"Okay."

He's got some peanuts in his hand and he feeds them into his mouth one by one, and every now and then I get a glimpse of his tongue as he licks the salt off his fingers.

"Just so you know," he says, "You can't come and burst in on us like before cos they've moved to a new house now."

That was one time, and I had to find him because his kids had been in a fire. Jesus, what does he think I am? Last thing I want is to see him and Rae in bed together again: once was more than enough.

"You're calling me a stalker now?"

"No, but – "

"Anyhow I thought you were sleeping on the couch."

"I am."

"There you are, then." I take a gulp of wine – which is growing on me, as it goes – and help myself to more nuts. "So, where's this new house?"

"Other side of Chester, dunno exactly."

"You better find out before you order your cab."

"Oh yeah." He laughs, and I can tell the alcohol is beginning to go to his head. Then he says, as if he's naming something mysterious and impressive, "It's got a _granny flat_."

"Mixing with the middle classes now, Steven. Rubbing off on you, ain't it – you're serving peanuts in _bowls_ now."

"Shut up," he says, and he does this kind of giggle, and it's delicious. "You're middle class, in't you?"

"Am I? Dunno, maybe. Everyone's middle class now, ain't they. Except you, obviously."

"What am I?" he asks, then he answers his own question. "I'm working class, in't I."

"Yeah. 'Cept when you think your boss ain't watching. Then you're lazy fucker class."

"Oi," he says, mock-offended, and he lifts his glass to his lips but I take it off him. "Oi," he says again, but he lets me.

"You've had enough."

I'm not meant to be doing this. I'm meant to be staying away, but if we're doing this it's got to be both of us: he's not got to be too drunk to know what he's doing. And I think we are doing this, because the atmosphere has thickened and there's nothing outside of this room, and there's only two things that can happen. One is, I leave now, this second. The other is –

He steps towards me. His lips taste of salt.

"Bedroom," he says, and I feel his breath in my mouth as he says it, and I guess he doesn't want to do this in the middle of his children's Christmas presents, so we part and I follow him.

It's cold in the room. The curtains are closed but they're thin so they're not much good at keeping in what little heat there is; all they do is dim the daylight a little bit. The cold does my job for me though – his nipples are erect before I touch them. They're visible through his sweater, and when I strip it off him I thumb them as we kiss, and they're so hard it feels like they must be sore. He makes an _Uh_ sound in his throat.

I move my hands down to the waistband of his jeans.

"How do these not fall off? They're half way down your arse."

His fingers are inside the collar of my sweatshirt, his mouth at my neck.

"Dunno," he says, and I tug at his jeans and they come down without me even undoing the button.

I move back so he can take off his trainers. I sit on the bed and take off my boots, then I pull my sweatshirt off over my head and return to him. He's just in his underpants now, and he presses himself against me and I kiss his face off. He's all bones, but there's strength in his arms as they hug tight around my shoulders.

"You got a rubber?" I say into his ear.

I let go of him and he scrabbles in a drawer.

"Got that," he says, and he hands me a packet.

It's no good. It's one of those ultra thin ones that'd be worse than useless for what we do. So that's what he uses with her, is it? For a moment, I hate him. _So what are you, then? What am I?_

"Not my size," I say, and I throw it onto the floor behind him. I catch a look of apprehension in his eyes before he suppresses it, and it brings me back, and I say, "Don't matter. We can do something else."

There's tension in his body when I embrace him, but it goes as he loses himself again. I slide down his boxers and push him onto the bed. I take off my jeans and boxers and get on the bed too. I sit at the head end, my back against the wall, and I wrangle him into place, sit him between my legs, his back against my chest. I wrap my arms around his stomach and kiss his neck, and he squirms because he's ticklish there. Then I start playing with him, his cock and balls warm in my hand. I hear his breathing get faster, and I watch his toes curl. He twists his head around and we kiss, and he bites my lip when I squeeze him.

I want lubrication to jack him off so I tell him to spit into my hand but instead he holds my wrist and licks my palm. His tongue goes between my fingers then my fingers go in his mouth. Fuck, he's... He sucks on my thumb for what feels like the longest time, then he licks my palm again and returns it to his dick, and I start stroking him, and his head lolls back on my shoulder. His hair is soft against my face.

A little tremor goes through him and he leaks a spurt of precum. I move him then, out from between my thighs, and he starts complaining till he realises I'm going to give him head. He lies back and spreads his legs for me to get between them.

The wet streak of precum tastes acrid and bracing. His dick is smooth and clean, and I buff its tip into the inside of my cheek and press my tongue along its underside, and I stretch his balls with my hand. He's started up a stream of obscenities, and when he says my name it sounds like one of them. My balls are aching.

He wants satisfaction. Impatient little bastard, he gets hold of my head and tries to push me down. I pull away.

"Don't ever do that. You don't... you don't ever try and force someone. Do I ever do that to you?"

"No. Brendan – "

I swoop back down, hold him by the root and deep throat him, and it's only a second or two later when his body jerks and his cum is on the back of my tongue, thick and warm as I swallow it down. I keep sucking him till his last shudder dies, and then I move up to kiss him. He's slack-jawed and panting, and I roll onto my back with him in my arms, and I make do with the pressure of his weight to give me some friction till he's got his strength and his wits back, and then I prop my shoulders against the wall again and he slides down and kneels between my knees, bows over and gets hold of me in both hands.

He's got a gift for this, but then he's had a good teacher, so. He's got all the tricks, fast and slow, rough and gentle. And he's got a very wet mouth. He slurps and sucks noisily, the top of his head nodding against my belly. I want to delay but Jesus, it's hard. I concentrate on looking at him, the convex curve of his spine as he crouches, the way his shoulder blades jut sharply together. His ears are going red. Maybe it's from lack of oxygen. I rub them between my fingers and thumbs and he does this kind of _Mmmm_ sound which hums right through me. When I come, he lifts his head, looks me dead in the eye and swallows, then he gasps a breath and sucks again till I've got nothing left.

He crawls up my body for his kiss, bringing the cover with him, and then he lies there, half on my lap, while I rub the prickly hairs at the back of his neck with my knuckles. After a while he moves off me a bit and says, "Mind if I go to sleep for a minute?" and I don't need to answer because when I look at him, he's already sleeping.

:::::::

I must have fallen asleep too, but not for long because the daylight through the curtains hasn't changed.

It was the noises that woke me, in my dream but still here in my head now that I'm awake. _Lucky for me I know your other little weak spot_. The smell of a cigarette burning out. Breath on the back of my neck. _Little Vinnie got what was coming to him_. A boy crying on the floor, then a different boy, then another, and my knuckles burning each time from putting him there.

Steven's lying with his throat in the crook of my elbow. He couldn't be more exposed, more at my mercy, and I don't know how he can feel safe with me, and my hand clenches into a fist. Better off, wouldn't he be, if I showed him you can't trust people and you've got to be smarter and faster and look after number one. _One eight is eight, two eights are sixteen, three eights are twenty-four_. He shifts in his sleep, turns his face towards me and it's blank and flawless like a child's. _Unless... _ And I can hear my voice again, somewhere far off, and I try to make out the words but they slip away.

I lift his head off my arm and lay it on the pillow, and I get up and gather my clothes and leave the room silently. When I run the bathroom taps the water groans in the pipes and I feel sure it'll wake him up but I listen, and I don't hear any movement. I have a quick wash and get dressed, and go into the front room to put my coat on.

His taxi's going to cost a fortune. I make an educated guess at the fare from here to the far side of Chester, and reckon it's probably going to be double as it's Christmas day. I've got enough cash with me. I find a bit of paper and grab one of the kids' coloured pens and scribble a note, _For the cab. B._ I'll leave it by his bed so he can't miss it.

I pause in the bedroom doorway and look into the room. The wallpaper is ancient and ugly, the carpet even older, probably, and worn thin except at the edges. The colours are drab. The furniture is shabby, mismatched, and there's a clutter of chainstore toiletries and piles of clothes on every surface. Everything smacks dully of struggle and making do.

And then in the middle of it all, there's the boy. I feel his beauty like a shock: he looks God-given. His face isn't troubled by what we do – what we've just done – or by the names for people who do those things, and as I look at him it almost seems possible that he's right, that that other road leads somewhere.

He moves in his sleep. I think he's dreaming and if he is, I know – I _know_ – what he's dreaming about. He's dreaming of _proper couple_ this and _relationship_ that, dating and mistletoe, white Christmases and happy ever afters, and it's fucking ridiculous. All of it, fucking ridiculous.

I walk in quickly and put the note down on the bedside cabinet and the cash on top of it, and I turn and go without looking back. I pull the flat door to but I don't shut it because the noise would wake him and I want to be gone before he realises.

I open the front door, and I stop short. It's... I close it and I go back into the flat and I go back into the bedroom.

"Steven." I stand by the window. "Steven."

"What?" He's disorientated.

"Come here."

He focuses, and spots the money on the bedside cabinet.

"What's that? Are you _paying_ me, d'you think I'm a – ?"

"Jesus, Steven, read the fucking note. It's for the taxi, you idiot. Jesus." I try again. "Come here."

"No. Why?"

"Can you do one thing without arguing?"

"I'm only asking what for."

He's frowning but he gets out of bed and comes over to me at the window. He's got the duvet wrapped around him like a cloak, as if he's never been naked in front of me before.

"What, you gone shy on me now?"

He tuts, "No, just cold," but his cheeks flush. "What d'you want, Brendan?"

I pull back the curtain.

"Look," I tell him.

"It's snowing... It's a white Christmas, Brendan."

"Looks like it."

We both stand looking out through the icy glass. The flakes of snow look fragile as they drift and fall, like there's nothing to them; but where they settle, everything looks changed. I turn my head to look at Steven. The pure winter light is exposing but he looks untainted. He's smiling as if he's seeing more than a bit of snow on a scrubby patch of ground. As if it means something. As if all things are possible if you want them enough.

And the voice in my head is there again – my voice, from a long way off – with the words I couldn't catch before, but this time I hear them clearly for just one moment before they're gone like a ghost.

_Wouldn't be so bad._


End file.
